Denying the Bangsamoro of their right to self-

determination means denying peace

OPINION – Statement on the Mamasapano Battle by SANLAKAS Secretary-General, Atty Aaron
Pedrosa

SANLAKAS fully supports all progressively principled and meaningful solutions to achieve lasting peace
for Mindanao directly related to the Bangsamoro Question. Any such measures aimed at resolving this
national question must be based on concretely attaining real social justice for the oppressed
Bangsamoro nation. Achieving this will be a strategic answer to a centuries-old dilemma that has
haunted the Philippine State.

SANLAKAS expresses its sincerest condolences and heartfelt sympathies to all the families and loved
ones of the protagonists who lost their lives in Mindanao’s latest, but avoidable carnage.

The Bangsamoro people have long suffered gross and untold historic injustices since the US
occupation and at the hands of the Philippine State led by its elite. As a result, not a few Bangsamoro
have taken up arms to resist and fight back. And they do so to shape their own national future as a
nation. In this regard, therefore, it is now totally imperative that the historically-oppressed peoples of
the Bangsamoro homeland be allowed to collectively express, and to rightfully determine their own
national aspirations as a free and sovereign people.

SANLAKAS believes that for peace to be achieved in Mindanao, the Bangsamoro people’s right to self-
determination must be respected and recognized. Their struggle is no different from our nation’s
struggle under centuries of colonial subjugation, against the tyranny of the Spanish, American and
Japanese colonizers. Thus, Filipinos should be in the best position to understand that there can be no
genuine peace if there is no social justice, that peace would remain an elusive ideal when entire
nations and oppressed ethno-cultural communities are deprived of their right to determine their own
destinies. We, therefore, cannot become colonizers of the Bangsamoro people by refusing and denying
them what previous generations of Filipinos steadfastly fought and died for, that is – the right to self-
determination.

However, the current national political situation is one that is sharply alarming. It starkly reflects the
direct outcome of the Battle in Mamasapano. Rabid war proponents and right-wing tendencies are
already exploiting the situation for maximum explosive effect upon the Filipino national psyche to
trigger yet another terribly devastating ‘All-out War’ against the Bangsamoro nation.

In recent public pronouncements by these reactionary spoilers of the ongoing peace process between
the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the MILF, they now want the so-called Bangsamoro Basic
Law (BBL), the lynchpin instrument for an acceptable peace earlier approved by the MILF’s Central
Committee, to be junked. While they earlier criticized the GPH-MILF peace process, specifically the
BBL, on constitutional grounds, they now want it totally scrapped in reaction to the unfortunate loss of
the 44 SAF troops.